Battle of Manticore

kzt wrote:Having Haven open the first war by a direct strike against Manticore is totally Monday morning quarterbacking. I don't think I ever claimed otherwise. However, it is fairly logical, given that the Manticore Alligence was most Manticore, with an assortment of minor supporting players. A few years later, no, not so much. But at the start of the first war the only SD yards seemed to be in The manticore home system and all the heavy ships were RMN.

So if they had treated Manticore as a single system and directly attacked it seems reasonable they would have likely won, though it would certainly have cost them quite a large price. It they lost, well that would have been a really bad day for Haven. However, eventually they have to do this, and the correlation of forces doesn't seem to favor delay, as the RMN is still building and other allies are getting close to coming on line with major shipyards.

It's a huge gamble, but anytime you go to war with a peer there is a major risk.

Hi, KZT ---

I don't think I suggested you were the one who'd proposed the direct attack on Manticore. I didn't mean to, if I did, although for all I can remember, you may well have been one of the folks who chimed in on it.

The main point about the strategy the Peeps adopted was that it did take into account the fact that the Manties were still building. They (Haven) did not yet realize just how quickly the RMN could build entire new ships, but they did realize that the Manties' building rate per ship was greater than their own. At the time hostilities commenced, however, the PRH was building many more ships at a time, and their calculation was that the rate at which ships commissioned would continue to favor them. They were wrong about that, but only because they didn't realize how much slack the SKM had in terms of unused building slips.

At any rate, they had no desire whatsoever to ram the majority of their fleet into the SKM's defenses because they believed (quite correctly) that they would have taken massive losses. Instead, they preferred to whittle the RMN down by massing powerful forces against the lighter pickets scattered around the MA. The idea was that they would be killing existing ships faster than the Manties could build new ones. In a best case scenario, the SKM would so weaken its home defenses in its effort to meet its obligations to its allies that a direct attack on the Manticore System would become possible at a much lower cost to the attackers. In the meantime, the PN would be acquiring the bases for forward operation which general galactic strategic and operational thinking held were necessary.

Part of the PN's calculus was also the concern about what would happen in its own rear areas if it took massive losses against the SKM. Internal security, even with all of those battleships, depended in part on the awe effect of having all those SDs looming in the background. If the PN were to take massive losses against the SKM --- especially in the immediate opening stages of the war --- and not take the home system, it would find itself not only facing the probability of Manty counter-attacks (since it would probably have reduced its fleet strength to near parity against an opponent who's per-ship building rates were higher than its own) but also have simultaneously weakened its ability to provide internal security and emboldened those who might be thinking in terms of rebellion and saw the weakened PN as a golden opportunity.

All of that was part of the strategic mix in their thinking, which is why there was never any realistic chance of their doing anything of the sort. Now, if Pritchart's war aims had been the conquest of the SEM, it would have made much more sense for Theisman to go with a decapitation strike against the home system as an opening move. Of course, if he'd done that, he'd damned well better have won. As you say, the possibility of Bad Things is always a factor when you go to war against a peer competitor.

BobfromSydney wrote:I think the point about the missiles being spread out across multiple light seconds during their flight makes sense.

However I was not suggesting using the Planet/Moon Lagrange points, I was suggesting using the Star/Planet Lagrange points. Planet/Moon are obviously inadequate in terms of creating a 'safe' separation.

Now even using the conservative value of 2 light seconds (600,000km), a 10,000 diameter planet would represent less than 1 degree of arc from the 600,000km point. So once you discount the missiles that are destroyed, disabled or decoyed before reaching target, those that actually are on target, those whose on-board 'safeties' function correctly and those that are not on a straight-line kinetic collision course with the planet, you will be left with very few missiles indeed. Perhaps only a handful, certain no more than a few dozen. Those would be fairly simple to take out with CMs/PD or wedge-block using block ships (including LACs, Destroyers or even freighters.

As to a fleet being spread out across a space a couple of light seconds across, okay, that's possible, although I imagine the 'wall of battle' component (which launches the MDMs) would be more concentrated than that.

But even a 2 light-second separation at a 2 light-minute distance is less than one degree of arc. At 1 light-minute (18 million km) it is still less than 2 degrees of arc.

My point is that the enemy fleet would practically have to deliberately target the planet in order to have a meaningful number of missiles 'collateral' the planet upon missing. Although the word would probably be COLINEAR, rather than COLATERAL if you take my meaning.

Using the Sun Earth Lagrange points as an example.

Reference Lagrangian point from Wikipedia.

Consider the layout of the Lagrange points as shown in this diagram:



The least time course that an attacker can be expected to take (with no resonance zones involved) from the hyper limit is the dotted line drawn from the Sun through Earth and the L1 & L2 points and extending further to the right to the hyper limit.

We can immediately rule out L3 for defense of the planet, as it lies on the opposite side of the sun from the planet.

L1 might be useful if you want to hide missile pods from an attacking fleet. (Is this where the RMN hid the pods in the shadow of the planet Spindle from the point of view of Crandal's fleet in Storm From the Shadows?) But if you want to avoid the possibility of having an attacking fleet accidentally hitting the planet when it fires on your pods, it has the same problem that L2 below has.

L2 could be used, but if the point is to have the attacking fleet fire on them and avoid accidentally hitting the planet, the planet is directly behind it from the attackers point of view. (If they are coming in on a least time course from the hyper limit.)

For both L4 and L5, the Sun, Earth and the Lagrange point, form an equilateral triangle with the length of the sides being the same as the radius of the Earth's orbit around the Sun (1 AU, 149,597,870,700 meters, or 499.004784 light seconds ~= 8.3167 light minutes).

So the questions for the defender (with Apollo system defense missiles) are:

1) Do the Apollo system defense missiles have the reach (active fire control) to reach out much more than 8.3167 light minutes? (You want to intercept the attackers with your missiles before they reach a position where they can fire on Earth, which will increase the range the missiles have to travel.) Keep in mind that in At All Costs, Honor's demonstration attack against 2nd Fleet was a bluff - she couldn't control more than a handful of missiles at a range of 150,000,000 kilometers. (Which may not be an issue if a system is designed to control many more missiles - Mycroft?)

2) Can the missiles make it to the attacking fleet before the attacker gets into their missile attack range of Earth?

3) Does the attacker have SDM's or MDM's? If they have MDM's, #2 above becomes much more difficult to answer yes.

4) For a different star system than Sol, how far is the planet from the hyper limit? Which impacts also #2 above. For example, this will not work against a fleet attacking Sphinx if it isn't in the resonance zone if the attacker has MDMs.

Something you didn't mention, Vince, is that L1, L2, and L5 are unstable. L3 and L4 are the only stable Lagrange points. Any cluster of pods at L1 or L2 will be scattered far and wide after only an orbit or two.

SWM wrote:Something you didn't mention, Vince, is that L1, L2, and L5 are unstable. L3 and L4 are the only stable Lagrange points. Any cluster of pods at L1 or L2 will be scattered far and wide after only an orbit or two.

Your're right, I should have pointed out the unstable Lagrange points. But L1, L2 and L3 (the ones on a line extending through the planet and the star) are the unstable Lagrange points. L4 & L5 are stable.

Another point I didn't mention that I should of is:

Will the defender immediately fire on any mass transit or first communicate (you definitely want to use a Hermes buoy for this*) with the attacker to tell them either surrender or leave?

* If you don't use a FTL communications relay, and wait for lightspeed communications, you are reducing the amount of time you have before you can fire from the L4 or L5 points.

Vince wrote:

SWM wrote:Something you didn't mention, Vince, is that L1, L2, and L5 are unstable. L3 and L4 are the only stable Lagrange points. Any cluster of pods at L1 or L2 will be scattered far and wide after only an orbit or two.

Your're right, I should have pointed out the unstable Lagrange points. But L1, L2 and L3 (the ones on a line extending through the planet and the star) are the unstable Lagrange points. L4 & L5 are stable.

Another point I didn't mention that I should of is:

Will the defender immediately fire on any mass transit or first communicate (you definitely want to use a Hermes buoy for this*) with the attacker to tell them either surrender or leave?

* If you don't use a FTL communications relay, and wait for lightspeed communications, you are reducing the amount of time you have before you can fire from the L4 or L5 points.

Right, L1, L2, and L3.

As for your question, it may depend on the planetary orbit. For most planets (including Manticore but not Sphinx), the orbit is too deep inside the hyper limit for missiles to reach the hyper limit.

SWM wrote:Right, L1, L2, and L3.

As for your question, it may depend on the planetary orbit. For most planets (including Manticore but not Sphinx), the orbit is too deep inside the hyper limit for missiles to reach the hyper limit.

I already noted (#4) that this setup won't work on Sphinx if the attacker has MDMs. It's been pointed out in the books that if Sphinx is NOT in the resonance zone, any attacker with MDMs that translates in from hyper on a least time course is already in MDM attack range of the planet, simply by emerging in normal space. The attacker doesn't even have to cross the hyper limit.

But are you sure that Apollo System Defense Missiles (4 stage MDMs) can't reach the hyper limit, if they were in Manticore orbit (as an example)?

Vince wrote:

SWM wrote:Right, L1, L2, and L3.

As for your question, it may depend on the planetary orbit. For most planets (including Manticore but not Sphinx), the orbit is too deep inside the hyper limit for missiles to reach the hyper limit.

I already noted (#4) that this setup won't work on Sphinx if the attacker has MDMs. It's been pointed out in the books that if Sphinx is NOT in the resonance zone, any attacker with MDMs that translates in from hyper on a least time course is already in MDM attack range of the planet, simply by emerging in normal space. The attacker doesn't even have to cross the hyper limit.

But are you sure that Apollo System Defense Missiles (4 stage MDMs) can't reach the hyper limit, if they were in Manticore orbit (as an example)?

Mmm, no, I'm not certain. The hyper limit is 22 lm, and Manticore orbits at 11.5 lm according to HoS (though that seems a bit far out to me). That means they would need a 10.5 lm range.

The 4 stage missile can certainly reach it. No idea if they are autonomous or could still get effective FTL updates fed to them.

MaxxQ wrote:
Re: The bolded part - your calcs will work fine as a rough estimate for Mk-16 DDMs, but if you want to go with Mk-23 MDMs, you should up the diameter by about 45%. See the Attack Missile Family Portrait in my DeviantArt link in my sig. I *could* give you the exact diameter (to two decimal places), but it's more fun to see people's estimates and see how close they get.

Thanks Maxx. I've updated the calculation to go with a diameter of 2.9 metres and changed the mass to 94 tons, which the Honorverse wiki gives for a Mk23 (seems low, given that the DD/CL-weight missiles Fearless was throwing in OBS were described as 70 tons when one of them landed on Sally McBride's leg, but maybe the Mk 23's fusion plant is a lot less dense than the older missile's capacitor rings). That brings the density down to 7.36 g/cm^3, given an impact yield at 0.5c of 'only' 251.786 gigatons.

For those like me who a ghoulish fascination with methods of destruction, the crater caused by such an impact landing at 30 degrees from horizontal to the planet surface would have a depth of 2,368 metres, with an apparent depth from the rim of the rampart around the crater of 2,960 metres (so it's raised a nearly 2,000-foot mountain range around the crater's circumference). The diameter of the crater itself would be 9,470 metres, with an apparent diameter including the rim of 11,838 metres. The ejecta spread would be over 20kms and the impact would displace more than 83 cubic kilometres of rock.

kzt wrote:The 4 stage missile can certainly reach it. No idea if they are autonomous or could still get effective FTL updates fed to them.

I don't think they would; 8th Fleet was less than 8.5 lm from 2nd Fleet when Honor fired her demonstration salvo to end First Manticore, and it's been established since then that she was bluffing - she didn't have the ability to control full fleet salvos with Apollo at that range.